Statistics about Internet Voting in Estonia

I-voting was first introduced in the local elections of 2005, when more than 9 thousand voters cast their ballot via the Internet (this corresponded to about 2 per cent of all participating voters). Today, I-voting with binding results has been carried out seven times in Estonia: in the local elections in October 2005, the parliamentary elections in March 2007, the European Parliament elections in June 2009 and May 2014, the local elections in October 2009, the parliamentary elections in March 2011 and in the local elections in October 2013.

In the parliamentary elections in 2007, about 30,000 voters used this voting method. (This number corresponds to 5 per cent of the participating voters). In the European Parliament elections in 2009 the number of I-voters had almost doubled – more than 58,000 voters used this method (this corresponded to about 15 per cent of all participating voters). Local elections took place on 18 October 2009, and we used I-voting as a voting method for the fourth time (about 104,000 I-voters and about 16 per cent of all participating voters). In the parliamentary elections in 2011, 140,846 I-voters used this voting method. In 2013 local elections more than 133 000 voters voted e. This number corresponds to about 22 per cent of the participating voters. In EP 2014 more than 103 000 voters used I-voting that is 31% of all voters. Please see Table 1.

Table 1. General Statistics

Local Elections 2005

Parlia-mentary Elections 2007

European Parliament Elections 2009

Local Elections 2009

Parlia-mentary Elections 2011

Local Elections 2013

European Parliament Elections 2014

Parlia-mentary Elections 2015

Eligible voters

1 059 292

897 243

909 628

1 094 317

913 346

1 086 935

902 873

899 793

Participating voters (voters turned out)

502 504

555 463

399 181

662 813

580 264

630 050

329 766

577 910

Voter turnout

47,4%

61,9%

43,9%

60,6%

63,5%

58,0%

36,5%

64,2%

I-voters

9 317

30 275

58 669

104 413

140 846

133 808

103 151

176 491

I-votes counted

9 287

30 243

58 614

104 313

140 764

133 662

103 105

176 329

I-votes cancelled

(replaced with paper ballot)

30

32

55

100

82

146

46

162

I-votes invalid (not valid due to a nonstandard of vote)

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.**

1

n.a.

1

Multiple I-votes (replaced with I-vote)

364

789

910

2 373

4 384

3 045

2 019

4 593

I-voters among eligible voters

0,9%

3,4%

6,5%

9,5%

15,4%

12,3%

11,4%

19,6%

I-voters among participating voters

1,9%

5,5%

14,7%

15,8%

24,3%

21,2%

31,3%

30,5%

I-votes among advance votes

7,2%

17,6%

45,4%

44%

56,4%

50,5%

59,2%

59,6%

I-votes cast abroad among I-votes (based on IP-address)*

n.a.

2%

51 states

3%

66 states

2,8%

82 states

3,9%105 states

4,2%

105 states

4,69% 98 states

5,71% 116 states

I-voting periood

3 days

3 days

7 days

7 days

7 days

7 days

7 days

7 days

I-voters using mobile-ID

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

2 690

11 753

11 609

22 084

I-voters using mobile-ID among I-voters

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

1,9%

8,6%

11,0%

12,2%

Share of I-votes that were verified by the voter

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

3,4%

4,0%

4,3%

* in Local Elections, voters permanently residing abroad are not eligible for voting** one invalid vote is depicted among cancelled votes